A residential building hit by a Russian tank in Mariupol, Ukraine, on March 11, 2022. Evgeniy Maloletka (AP)
The Pulitzer Prizes, the most prestigious in the United States, this year recognized great war coverage by media outlets like the Associated Press Agency and the centennial newspaper The New York Times. Focusing on the war in Ukraine, the former’s photography team, which captured the ongoing siege of besieged Mariupol by Russian troops, was recognized for their work with the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, in addition to their Latest Photography Hour work in the first weeks of the conflict. Among the members of the team, with a notable presence of young local photographers, are Spaniards Emilio Morenatti and Bernat Armangué, regulars on this list. The New York newspaper received the International Reporting Award for its coverage of the Russian invasion.
Information issues of national interest, such as the US Supreme Court’s overturning of the constitutional abortion guarantee or the burning phenomenon of child labor in the world’s leading economy, were also identified. The Washington Post’s Caroline Kitchener won the Pulitzer Prize for Best National Reporting for her coverage of abortion following the overturning of the historic Roe v. Wade ruling that instituted the procedure in the United States in 1973. Portal was a finalist in this category for its reporting of the widespread use of child labor at Hyundai engine suppliers in Alabama; a scourge that regularly spreads to other large American companies such as McDonald’s. Portal also ranked second in the international reporting category for a series of investigations into the Nigerian army’s violations of the fundamental rights of women and children in its war against jihadism.
The awards are named after newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer, who died in 1911. In his will, Pulitzer left a fund to create the awards, as well as a journalism school at Columbia University. This year’s call is a boost for international information, the most expensive investment and media, but the most needed to explain the world’s complexities, including the existence of a war in Europe in the 21st century.
Regarding the journalism practiced in the United States, the Pulitzers have also opted for topical issues such as financial conflicts of interest from 50 federal agencies at a time of massive layoffs and chain closures of small and independent media outlets, which has earned him the research award to the business newspaper The Wall Street Journal. He has also addressed the structural racism sweeping the country, with a breaking news award to the Los Angeles Times for exposing a secretly taped conversation between city officials containing thick racist comments that rocked the council. Another hot topic is the immigration policy of the Donald Trump administration, which forcibly separated migrant children from their parents, leading to abuses that persist under the current administration (this week the end of the so-called Title 42 will be decided). ., went to Caitlin Dickerson of The Atlantic magazine.
The Pulitzers also award prizes in other categories, including books, music, and drama. In the non-fiction section, the great Roman Trust by Hernán Díaz (there is a Spanish translation in Anagrama entitled Fortuna), four stories about a Bronze Age Wall Street tycoon with echoes of Thomas Mann, was awarded ex aequo with Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. In the biography category, the award recognized a work by Beverly Gage on the character of J. Edgard Hoover, who spent decades at the head of the FBI leading the witch hunt started by McCarthyism. A non-fiction book has been published about George Floyd, the African-American man who was killed by police in Minneapolis in 2020 and whose killing sparked the largest anti-racism mobilization in decades both in the United States and abroad.
The jury for the Pulitzer Prizes is made up mainly of publishers, big companies and executives from the main American media, such as David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker magazine, or the essayist and journalist Anne Applebaum of The Atlantic. .